Why Baked Bean and Tomato Cupcakes?

I wouldn’t have even entered Tomato Fest this year were it not for the Legume Love Affair. The Legume Love Affair is a blog event hosted by the Well-Seasoned Cook where you have to cook with legumes (duh!). I decided to bake bean cupcakes for the event.

What to put in the bean cupcake? Tomatoes, of course! Then, I remembered that Tomato Fest was coming up, and the rest is history.

What Does a Baked Bean and Tomato Cupcake Taste Like?

For the ultimate test of the baked bean and tomato cupcake, I gave one to my friend who just got (and proudly wears) this shirt from Groom 2.5:

If you are a proud nerd Scrabble fanatic, you can buy this shirt from Busted Tees.

The shirt is almost as nerdy as trying to make cupcakes with tomatoes and beans. You could see why we might be friends.

The Scrabble-loving taster tried the cupcakes without knowing what they were. She thought that they tasted like a basic spice cake with some not-so-sweet strawberries. Little did she know that those were not bad strawberries, they were tomatoes! She also didn’t realize that there were beans in there.

The cupcakes were surprisingly light and super moist. It’s a nice cupcake to bake in early Autumn – try it while tomatoes are still in season, but when it starts to get just a little bit cooler.

The Baked Bean and Tomato Cupcake Recipe

I changed the recipe a ton, but I did get the original pinto bean cupcake inspiration from eHow.

I am constantly fascinated by your cupcake creations. I would never have guessed beans were in this cupcake, but hey, knowing it for a fact wouldn’t make me less eager to try it. Great-looking cupcakes!

You can just use a can of refried beans, right? Rather than draining and mushing them up yourself? Cuz I’m lazy.

Also, then you could call them, like, Refried Bean and Tomato Cupcakes, instead of Baked Bean and Tomato Cupcakes. Not that “refried bean cupcakes” sounds any better than the other. It’s still a bit sketchy. But at least they’d be truthful?

You’re right…I would never have guessed these were tomato & bean cupcakes. I would have thought chocolate with orange cream cheese frosting. I will admit that sounds better to me than tomato & bean cupcakes, but I would try them out of curiosity.

I’m curious to know if you would ever attempt this recipe using any kind of bean other than the one you did use already. I’m thinking chickpeas or string beans (with or without the pod). Thoughts on how this might work out?

This recipe caught my attention, because the two things I hate most are Tomatoes and Beans. Well, I tried out the recipe… and the cupcakes were a HIT! I topped them up with buttercream frosting as I didn’t have cream cheese or tomato paste.All cupcakes vanished in minutes and no one could guess what was in them! God bless your talent!

Brilliant. This is just the kind of recipe I’ve been looking for! We’re having a cupcake day at work to raise money for the cancer ward at our local hospital and we’ve decided to have a ‘Guess the flavour’ stall. I think this will be confusing enough to make it a bit more difficult for people to guess 😀 Thanks for a wonderful recipe.